Sphinx

The Sphinx **at //Giza//**  The Sphinx is a 240 foot tall monument that has a lion’s body with Pharaoh Khafre’s head. If you look at the Sphinx from the front, you might see the Pharaoh gazing upon, but if you look at it from the side, it might remind you of the Chinthes of Myanmar; only this Chinthe has a man’s head. The Sphinx is known as ‘Abu-al-Hol’ which means father of terror in Arabic. It was built by Pharaoh Khafre and was constructed of soft limestone. The Sphinx resembled the mythical winged monster with a woman’s head and lion’s, she set riddles and killed anyone unable to answer them. It is said that the original Sphinx was a mythological creature that is believed to guard the Greek city of Thebes. It sat at the gate of Thebes, guarding it and asking riddles to men who come into the city. If the men can’t answer the riddle, the men were believed to be strangled. That was how it got its name; Sphinx, means “strangler” in Greek. Later, in the Greek tales, it is believed that the Sphinx threw herself from a high rock cliff and died. Some of Sphinx’ riddles were; “Which creature in the morning goes on four legs, at mid-day two, and in the evening upon three, and the more legs it has, the weaker it can be?” A man called Oedipus (Greek) solved it by answering: Man- who crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two feet as an adult, and then walks with a cane in old age. Second riddle; “There are two sisters: one gives birth to the other and she, in turn, gives birth to the first.” Answer: day and night.  The Sphinx at Giza’s purpose was to guard Pharaoh Khafre’s pyramid. There were so many stone blocks left over from building the pyramid of the Pharaoh that the Egyptian Architect decided to build the Sphinx for their Pharaoh’s tomb safety. Similar statues and miniatures of the Sphinx are found in the tombs of the Pharaoh.  Now a day, if you go to Cairo, you might see the Sphinx without a nose because the nose of Sphinx was hammered off sometime between the 11th and 15th centuries. People often blame Napoleon; Emperor of the French. He used the Sphinx’ nose as target for their shooting practice while he sent a campaign there. A cannon ball is still left in the Sphinx. But the part of the beard that was fallen at 19th century is now in display at the British Museum in London. Pictures by: [|www.jerryburns.com] [|www.chronos.plutospeaks.com] [|www.flickr.com] [|www.myspace.com]